Worship is the right, fitting, and delightful response of moral beings — angelic and human — to God the Creator, Redeemer, and Consummator, for who he is as one eternal God in three persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — and for what he has done in creation and redemption, and for what he will do in the coming consummation, to whom be all praise and glory, now and forever, world without end. Amen
Jonathan Gibson, Reformation Worship, p. 2
Got this thick book on worship. Here’s an attempt to log down the highlights from my reading.
Love the foreword by Sinclair B. Ferguson.
“…the rediscovery of the gospel and the reformation of worship were two sides of the same coin, because sung praise, confessions of sin and confessions of Faith, prayer, and the reading and preaching of Scripture are but various aspects of the one ministry of the Word.“
— Sinclair B. Ferguson, Reformation Worship, p. xv-xvi (italics added)
The fuel of worship is a true vision of the greatness of God: the fire that makes the fuel burn white hot is the quickening of the Holy Spirit; the furnace made alive and warm by the flame of truth is our renewed spirit: and the resulting heat of our affections is powerful worship, pushing its way out in confessions, longings, acclamations, tears, songs, shouts, bowed heads, lifted hands, and obedient lives.
John Piper. Desiring God, p. 82
This new song by Townend (and Jordan Kauflin, Matt Merker, Keith Getty) popped up in my Spotify a few days ago. Like many of his other songs, it was love at first listen and it keeps growing. Townend’s music is so signature. I like how it doesn’t sound like other music that’s put out there. Here’s Townend’s story behind the song. It’s a great expression of Psalm 130.
Update
So the above was written back in Sep 2018. I never completed the draft. Only during this Lenten season in 2020, the song popped back into my playlist. It’s always been there, but guess I forgotten about it till recently when I heard Shane and Shane’s cover. Love that octave jump in verse 3!
So put Your hope in God alone
Jordan Kauflin, Matt Merker, Keith Getty and Stuart Townend
Take courage in His power to save
Completely and forever won
By Christ emerging from the grave
The core of Christian leadership—as an extension of Christian life and faithfulness—is your constant commitment to trust the Bible. Will God’s word shape your life and your leadership? Will it shape how you view everything else you encounter and how you evaluate every new insight or development or movement? Or will it be but one vitally important component amongst many? Where will the authority lie?
The degree to which your leadership is built on, shaped by, conforms to, and is accountable to God’s word is the degree to which your leadership will be Christ-honouring and kingdom-building—regardless of how successful it looks at the time. Having Scripture as the basis and foundation of your leadership isn’t enough. Everything you build on that cut out and ignore any secular wisdom that contradicts the Bible. It’s a process that requires us to be discerning and gospel-focused.
– Craig Hamilton, Wisdom in Leadership, p. 32 (emphasis mine)
Instead of starting from the outside and talking about the what and the how and never getting to the why, we need to flip it around and communicate from the inside out. WE need to start with the why. People don’t care as much about the what and how as they do about the why. Tell me why we need to do this. When you tell people why, you being answering questions like: What’s the point of it? Why does it matter? What would happen if we didn’t do it and why would that be so bad?
…
The why is the key because it’s the why that matters, that convinces and engages people. So as a leader you have to make sure you know and communicate the why, even if you don’t quite know the what or the how. Even before the what and how are clear, people who know and understand the why will come with you.
-Craig Hamilton, Wisdom In Leadership, The how and why of leading the people you serve, p. 207-208
This song popped up after listening to CityAlight’s ‘Yet not I but through Christ in me’ and it’s simply edifying as well. ‘Christ Is Mine Forever’ reminds me in the midst of failures and frustrations (or successes) to rejoice in Christ and the salvation in which he has bought for me.
Luke 10:20 (ESV): Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Mine are days that God has numbered
I was made to walk with Him
Yet I look for worldly treasure
And forsake the King of kings
But mine is hope in my Redeemer
Though I fall, his love is sure
For Christ has paid for every failing
I am His forevermore
Mine are tears in times of sorrow
Darkness not yet understood
Through the valley I must travel
Where I see no earthly good
But mine is peace that flows from heaven
And the strength in times of need
I know my pain will not be wasted
Christ completes his work in me
Mine are days here as a stranger
Pilgrim on a narrow way
One with Christ I will encounter
Harm and hatred for his name
But mine is armour for this battle
Strong enough to last the war
And he has said he will deliver
Safely to the golden shore
And mine are keys to Zion city
Where beside the King I walk
For there my heart has found its treasure
Christ is mine forevermoreCredits: Jonny Robinson and Rich Thompson
Come rejoice now, O my soul
For his love is my reward
Fear is gone and hope is sure
Christ is mine forevermore!
This is question 1 of the New City Catechism.
Answer: That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Q. How can we rest in God’s power and purposes?
A. We are confident that God is in charge and at work through the joys and sometimes failures of preaching.…
In the last sermon he ever preached for a pastor’s gathering (he actually died before he delivered it), John Flavel warned his fellow labourers of this. Quoting Martin Luther, he said:
“The labour’s of the ministry will exhaust the very marrow from your bones, hasten old age and death” (Luther). They are fittingly compared to the toilet of men in harvest, to the labours of a woman in travail, and to the agonies of soldiers in the dangers of battle. We must watch when others sleep.
Lewis Allen, The Preacher’s Catechism, p. 51-52
It is not so much the expense of our labours, as the loss of them, that kills us. It is not with us, as with other labourers. They find their work as they leave it, not so with us. Sin and Satan unravel almost all we do, the impressions we make on our people’s souls in one sermon, vanish before the next. How many truths have we to study! How many strategies of Satan, and mysteries of corruption, to detect! How many cases of conscience to resolve! We must fight in defence of the truths we preach, as well as study them to paleness, and preach them unto faintness. But well-spent head, heart, lungs, and all; welcome pained breasts, aching backs, and trembling legs, if we can by all but approve ourselves Christ’s faithful servants, and hear that joyful voice from his mouth, “Well done, good and faithful servants.”
Reforming Roy 